


Dan Howell and the Boy from the Edge of Town

by windmill_of_death



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Fluff, Hogwarts Era, I don't know what to tag this, Phil has a back story, Sort Of Fluff, but it might not be, i find it hard to be mean to characters, its a bit sad, the trio might make an appearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windmill_of_death/pseuds/windmill_of_death
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He thought what he was doing was weird, but he would never have called it stalking, being only 8 years old he had never heard of such a thing. He was only there to see how the boy did, well that, it was so cool. As Dan watched, the boy picked up a pebble which instantly started changing colour. Dan stared for a couple of seconds, before screwing up his courage and stumbling out of the bush." <br/>Just your basic Hogwarts AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He thought what he was doing was weird, but he would never have called it stalking, being only 8 years old he had never heard of such a thing. So there he was, crouched behind a bush, peering through the leaves at the boy sitting on the grass in front of him. Breaking into someone's garden was bad, but he wasn't going to steal anything so it was okay, right? He was only there to see how the boy did, well that, it was so cool. As Dan watched, the boy picked up a pebble which instantly started changing colour. Dan stared for a couple of seconds, before screwing up his courage and stumbling out of the bush. "Hi, I'm Dan!"  
"Hello, Dan" said the boy, looking far less startled than he should have.   
"Aren't you surprised that I just rolled out of that bush?"  
"I could see you there, I thought if I ignored you, you'd just go away" said the boy simply, shrugging his shoulders.   
"Okay, I was just-"   
"Phil!" came a flustered voice from the back door, "Phil what are you- who's this?" said the women, giving Dan a scathing look.  
"This is Dan, Mum"   
"And what's he doing here?"   
"I don't know"   
"Then come inside at once!"   
The boy (apparently called Phil) gave Dan an apologetic smile before turning towards his house. Dan decided it was time from him to go too. As he began to leave, he heard the women say to her son, "I can't believe you did that! What have I told you?! Don't you remember what happened last time?!"

Phil started at Dan's school the following Thursday, he was in Dan's year and in most of his classes, but they practically never spoke, in fact Phil hardly ever spoke to anyone, he kept to himself. So that's how their relationship continued, Dan desperately trying to strike up conversations and Phil always coming up with a reason to get out of them. Dan still tried though, he watched him from afar, he wanted to know why Phil never talked to him even though he obviously wanted to, he wanted to know how Phil did what he could only describe as magic, but mainly Dan wanted to know why he could do it too.

Strange things had been happening around Dan his whole life, but he had never really thought anything of it, they had all been coincidences. It had never crossed his mind that he was actually causing these things, until he met Phil. When he met Phil things started to make sense. Dan wondered whether they were the only ones in the world, he wondered why Phil could control it when he couldn't; it only happened when he was angry or scared. There were so many things he wanted to know, so little time, he was nearly 11, which meant that in July he would be leaving primary school, in July he and Phil would be parting ways, probably for ever.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a typical English summer. Phil sat on the branch of a low tree, observing the grey sky above him, this is how summer goes he thought, it would be dull and cloudy, then we would get 2 weeks of scorching hot days with blinding sunshine, back to grey, bitter cold turns to snow, then the whole blasted thing starts all over again, going round and round forever (until global warming kicks in and we all drown), Phil didn't mind though it gave him a sense of security in an ever changing world, and so much was changing at the moment, he was 11 already and had got his letter, he was defiantly going. Not that he didn't want to go, it was just that he hadn't had any real contact with other children since the incident and he didn't know how to act around them. Phil sighed, the light had began to fade and he had to head home. Tomorrow was the last day at school, he didn't see the point of going but his mum said he had to.

The next day passed swiftly enough, lots of hugging, crying and Phil either sitting, standing or crouching awkwardly as he had no one to say goodbye to. The clock struck 3:20 and it was all over, he could leave. He rolled his eyes at some girls who had begun to tear up again, they were going to see either again tonight anyway. There was this big party thing that Phil had obviously not been invited to. He turned his back on the girls,on the building he had spent the last 3 years of his life cooped up in and walked out the gate, fully understanding that he would never see them or it again.

About halfway down the road Phil stopped, he had heard his name, maybe his mum had come to pick him up and he'd forgotten. He heard it again, this time followed by hard, fast footsteps. He turned to see a boy running at him, Dan. He should have known, Dan always tried to task talk to him, it made being antisocial a lot harder.

"Hey Phil, wassup?" He said catching his breath, there was a slight desperation in his voice that only confused Phil even further.  
"Nothing really" was the reply.  
"Going to that party tonight?" Phil just shrugged."Oh come on, you should, it'll be fun" Dan pleaded halfheartedly.  
Phil didn't even honour that with a response except "goodbye Dan". Dan's face fell.  
"Maybe I'll see you around some time?"  
"Maybe" and he was gone, Dan had not followed him. Phil sighed again, he seemed to be doing that about lately. It had occurred to him that Dan had seen him to do magic, of course it had, but Dan hasn't tried to do anything to him except talk, and about the most mundane stuff. Phil had no idea what was going on.


	3. Chapter 3

Dan wasn’t usually this determined, if anything took more than 3 tries it wasn’t worth doing, but not this time, he needed to talk to Phil. Everyday for a week he would go round to his house, knock on the door, peer through the windows, just trying to talk to him. The rare times the door would open, it would be Phil’s mum, she would say that Phil wasn’t in and that Dan should get of her premises immediately. Dan wasn’t good at handling people so he would just do as he was told, but he would just return a few hours later.

On the 8th day he realised he must have done something very wrong. He knocked on the door and no one answered, this was to be expected, but as he sat in the driveway looking at the house he noticed something, it looked older, much older, like no one had lived in it for years. The windows were hastily boarded up and weeds grew up the stairs leading to the doorway. The back garden was the same. Overgrown and empty, no swing set, no action figures littering the lawn, just a carpet of dark, overgrown grass. The door hung loosely on it’s hinges, broken enough for Dan to just pull it off. The house was just as he had suspected. There was no furniture, the walls where bare of pictures and the carpet and been stripped from the floor. Black mould crept up the side of one wall ending just before a set of light switches. He tried them all, only one bulb in the corner came to life, flickering for a second before leaving the room to drown in shadow once again. Dan hated what he was seeing, that house had always been a constant, when everything he could do seemed unbelievable, that house, Phil, had always been a reassurance that he wasn’t alone, now he was just a freak standing in a ghost house. 

He had nothing to do anymore. Hardly anyone knew the house, it was right on the edge of town, and no one knew where they went. The thing that scared Dan the most was how little people seemed to care, the Lesters had kept themselves to themselves and that meant they were not to be worried about. Try as he might, Dan couldn’t get people to pay attention, so he resolved to just sit on the doorstep in case someone came asking for them and he could find out who they were.

He was in luck, a man arrived not long after the disappearance. “‘ello?” he said in a gruff voice, making Dan jump then back away in fear. The man was a giant, maybe not literally but he wasn’t far from it, he even had a beard that went all the way down to his waist, as well as covering his mouth and nose. “Don’t be scared” his voice was kind once you got over the initial shock of it “are you Dan 'owell?”. Words failed Dan at that moment and all he could do was nod “yeah, Dumbledore said you might be ‘ere, i’m supposed to give you this”, he handed Dan an envelope with curly green writing on it. He opened it cautiously, as though it was going to go off at any second, once he pulled it out he read it quickly, not believing any of it but wishing it were true. Once he finished he looked up, “why would you make this?” he said, trying not to sound too upset.  
“You don’t believe it?”  
“Of course not”  
“So you’ve never made anything ;appen? Never done anything that you couldn’t believe when you were angry, or scared? Never seen anything?”  
Dan swallowed, thinking back to that day, at this house, all those years ago, it did make sense. “So if this is really...what does it mean?”  
“Dan - yer a wizard”


End file.
